Governance

The Transatlantic Council on Migration convened to explore how governments can meaningfully address the powerful market for illegal entry and employment that exists on both sides of the Atlantic, outlining a strategic approach to identify the tools and strengthen the political will necessary to tackle some of the factors—and the migration “bad actors”—that fuel these patterns. This Council Statement assesses the continuum of policies needed to disrupt not only the most obvious patterns of illegal activity, but the underlying conditions that make it possible (and profitable). Governments can neither eradicate all illegal activity, nor can they make borders fully secure. Instead, they must constantly weigh the costs, benefits, and sometimes perverse consequences of deploying resources in one area versus another in order to maximize impact while recognizing the limits of both human and financial capital available for this effort.

Human smuggling and trafficking are rapidly growing transnational criminal activities in Europe, where the demand to enter for work or to escape dire political or economic situations in migrant-sending countries exceeds the legal migration opportunities. The problem has become a high priority for EU Member States, and is especially challenging given Europe’s relatively porous borders. This report examines the factors and facilitators at play and assesses policy solutions.

The facilitation of illegal immigration is big business in India. One method being used to exploit immigration loopholes, explored in this report, is referred to as “donkey flights”—the practice of Indian migrants obtaining a tourist visa for a Schengen-zone country in order to enter the United Kingdom through the back door via other European countries.

Notwithstanding massive government investments in immigration controls in the United States and Europe, illegal immigration and the unlawful employment of migrants continue, fueled in large measure by highly adaptive “bad actors” who facilitate and profit from illegality: smugglers, traffickers, and unscrupulous employers among them. This report, the first in a series from the Transatlantic Council on Migration that focuses on innovative, practical policy solutions that curb the influence of bad actors by shrinking the “gray area” in which they operate, outlines the security-related challenges that borders are intended to address and, in turn, the perverse consequences (both predictable and not) that tighter border enforcement generates.
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